


Buttons & Other Treasures

by Rose_Lattes



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 07:46:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19763716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_Lattes/pseuds/Rose_Lattes
Summary: Something shiny catches Nott’s eye, and she recruits Caleb and Jester to assist her in stealing it.Made for Widojest Week 2019-Day 3: Kissing as a distraction / Mischief





	Buttons & Other Treasures

Nott had a plan, one that tingled her fingers and brightened her eyes. By the end of the night, she _would_ have her prize. That is, of course, if it all went according to her thoroughly thought-out and fool-proof plan of hers. She scooted an inch closer to Caleb. Tugging on the thick fabric of his jacket, Nott whispered, “Don’t look, but there is a man in the corner wearing the prettiest button, I have ever seen.”

“Would you like to go ask where he got it?” Caleb asked with a humored smile.

Nott’s ears twitched. “I’m thinking you help create a distraction, and I will swipe it.”

Despite Nott’s instructions, Caleb glanced to the man, and button, in question. The golden button, one of three, laid embedded in fine navy wool. The garment boasted a high-collar, and a waistline cinched with a thick leather belt. “He’s wearing it,” Caleb plainly said as he moved to grab his cup of ale.

“That’s what the _distraction_ is for,” Nott said.

“What distraction?” Jester said. She leaned against the side of the table, turning from Fjord and Beau’s conversation, to join Caleb and Nott’s.

“Ah, perfect, maybe Jester can help you figure it out.” Nott enthusiastically patted the tiefling on the arm. “We need to get the jacket off the man in the corner,” she explained to the woman.

“Man in the corner. Got it.” Jester stood and lifted her leg to get out of the bench. Nott grabbed her by the sleeve and pulled her back down.

“You already have a plan?” Nott asked. Caleb pushed a piece of bread into his mouth.

“Yes,” Jester said with a toothy smile. “Well, no.” She lifted her shoulders in an innocent shrug. “It’s just a jacket. I don’t think it’s that difficult to have a man take off his coat.”

Taken aback by the woman’s cocksureness, Nott glanced to Caleb. The human tilted his head, mirth warmed his eyes, and Nott knew what he was going to say. “It looks like she has it under control. You two will make a great team.”

“Aww, thank you, Caleb,” Jester said.

“No, not ‘thank you, Caleb!’” Nott straightened up and smacked her hands on the table. “Jester, I trust you, but you can’t just go asking men to take their clothes off. It’s not how it works.” Jester deflated. “Caleb, just go with her.”

“And do what, exactly?” Caleb asked, still far too lighthearted for Nott’s taste.

“Oooh!” Jester exclaimed. “I know what we can do.” She lifted her brow and threw Caleb an expression he was in no place to comprehend. “Follow my lead.” Once again, she pushed herself from the table, but this time, Nott could not summon the energy to stop her.

“Wait, Jester,” Caleb said. He stood and looked after her. “What is your plan?”

She spun on her heel, narrowly avoiding a collision with a server, and stuck her tongue out. She grinned. “Just follow me, Caleb.”

The human ran his fingers along the dining table, catching the splintered wood with his callouses. He shared one final glance with an impatient Nott, before nudging himself away from the table. Nott whispered a harsh ‘good luck’ as he joined Jester in the middle of the tavern.

“I do hope you have a plan,” Caleb muttered. He brushed his auburn hair away from his eyes, only for it to fall back over his brow in a slight curl.

“Trust me, Caleb,” Jester said, but Caleb found it incredibly difficult to do so when the woman smiled as she did. Without warning, Jester strung her arm beneath his and hooked their elbows together.

The man with the wool coat sat at a round table. He had blonde hair and a wide nose, to his right, a woman with beads decorating her locks and a low cut dress showing off her chest took a sip from her glass. A necklace with a large oval ruby rested between her collar bones.

As bold as ever, Jester sauntered right up to the couple’s table. Caleb matched her stride with mild discomfort.

“Hi,” said Jester with a youthful grin. The man in the coat, who was, unfortunately, mid-sentence, turned from his date with an apprehensive smile.

“Hello,” he said slowly, eyeing Jester, unable to digest the magnitude of the tiefling before him. His glance danced down her body, pausing at her eclectic belts and mismatched socks, before finally moving to meet Caleb’s awkward smile. When Jester did not move to fill the silence, the man cleared his throat and asked, “Are you with the tavern staff?”

Jester giggled and shook her head. “Oh, no.” She placed her hand along Caleb’s arm, and he watched her with burning curiosity. “I just saw your necklace and wanted to give my _husband_ a little bit of inspiration for my birthday.”

It took Caleb only five heartbeats to play along, but in the span of those five beats, Caleb grappled with every possible outcome of the scenario. “It is, ah…” he nodded, avoiding Jester’s smiling eyes, “very beautiful.”

Jester lit up and dropped Caleb’s arm. “It’s just so captivating!” With a well-placed hand, the tiefling leaned across the table, ‘accidentally’ nudging one of the cups over. Its dark contents spilled onto the man’s lap. He flinched while muttering a cuss. “Oh! I am so sorry,” Jester said, flying forward to assist the sputtering man.

The man in the drenched coat stood with a scowl, shooing Jester away from him. He patted the fabric with his handkerchief. “Darling, just take it off,” the woman said, embarrassed by the man’s reaction. “It will dry.”

“It is one of a kind, Charlotte.” Despite the protest in the man’s words, he unbuckled his belt and began to unbutton the heavy coat.

“We can take it to the cleaners in the morning.”

As the pair continued to snap at one another, Jester leaned into Caleb. “She just asked, and he did it,” she complained.

“It is a bit different if the woman and the man are together,” Caleb explained softly.

“Would you take your coat off?” Jester teased.

“We aren’t together,” Caleb blurted out, and Jester gasped, feigning upset.

“If you’re interested in the ruby,” the woman said, wrangling the group back into a proper conversation. “It’s a cut from Nicodranas. A bit out of the way, but they have a spectacular selection of jewels.”

Caleb smiled softly, knowingly. “They do, don’t they?”

Charlotte sat up. “Oh, you’ve been?”

The man carefully placed the coat on the back of his chair before sitting down. “We were just there for vacation,” he said, trying to regain his composure.

Unable to help himself, Caleb casually bumped his shoulder against Jester. “I have a sapphire from Nicodranas.” At his side, Jester exhaled softly before smiling.

Charlotte clasped her hands together and swooned. “A sapphire? So, rare. Frederick, we should search for our own.”

As if Caleb had shone a light on a corner Frederick wished to leave in the shadows, the blonde looked to Caleb with a challenge in his eyes. “We should, shouldn’t we?”

At the Mighty Nein’s original table, Nott watched the altercation with rapid eyes. Deeming it time, she hopped off the bench and repositioned her mask. With nimble steps, she dodged the evening crowd and made her way to the back wall. She placed her back against the wall and carefully crept toward her prey. The woolen coat hung from the man’s chair; its golden button glistened beneath the candlelight.

Caleb spotted Nott. The goblin was now on her hands and knees, crawling towards them with a sharp intent. Caleb, feeling the release of victory on the horizon, wrapped his arm around Jester’s waist and settled in to secure their triumph. “There are not many couples in this bar,” he started, attempting to ignite another round of conversation.

“You two look so good together,” Jester commented, slightly stiff from the contact at her hip. “How long have you two been—ah, seeing one another.”

Nott tapped the back of Jester’s boot, asking her a very quiet question. The tiefling nearly looked to the ground, but Caleb squeezed her hip, telling her it was just their plan moving forward. Behind her, Nott picked up the hem of her dress and tapped Jester’s ankles to get her to move.

“A few months,” Charlotte said. Jester shuffled her feet apart, hiding the oddity of the movement by landing against Caleb’s chest in an enthusiastic display of familiarity.

“Ca—Cailen, and I have been together for almost a year,” she said with a toothy smile. Nott had disappeared beneath the hem of Jester’s dress and crawled between her legs. She exited the front of the garment and skittered towards the chair.

Hidden beneath the table, Nott took the dark wool into her hands and pried the button from its prison of threads. It was even more beautiful in person! Perfectly circular, two holes and an intricate floral design around its edge. She clenched it between her nails and tore it from the jacket. She pocketed it and skittered back to the hem of Jester’s dress.

“A year?” Charlotte clasped her hands together. “How wonderful.”

Jester nodded and moved forward. Feeling Nott, exit the back of her skirt, she prepared herself for her grand exit. “Yes, well, when you know it’s love, you know it’s love.” She smacked Frederick on the side of the arm and chastised him with a playful scowl. “Don’t make her wait too long, yeah?”

Charlotte blushed and looked to her cup of alcohol.

Caleb, while enjoying the moment far too much, knew it was nearing its end. “Fiona, it’s getting quite late. We should get going,” he said while nodding to the tavern’s doors.

“Aww, already? We were just getting to know our new friends.” Jester’s eyes crinkled.

“We have a long day tomorrow,” Caleb said with a soft smile.

Jester raised her chin and grinned up at him. “And a long night,” she said. Floored by the woman’s sudden vulgarity, Caleb barely bit back his surprise. Jester turned back to Charlette and Frederick’s wide eyes with an uneven smile. “We will check out Nicodranas for rubies,” she sang before taking Caleb by the hand and dragging him away.

“Goodnight,” Caleb muttered.

“You too,” Charlette called back with a knowing grin.

Before they got back to the Mighty Nein’s table, Jester stopped. She spun on her heel and Caleb stilled. “Did you see that?” she asked with an ecstatic whisper. “We were so cool.” She raised her hands and sliced the air like she had seen Beau do so many times in combat. “We were like spies.”

Caleb caught her hands and brought them back down to her sides. “That is probably not the best thing to say in the middle of a tavern.” The adrenaline from their lie, from Nott’s thievery, sent his heart hammering, and he needed a moment to collect himself before they rejoined the others, so he did not pull his hands from hers. He used her soft fingers and warm skin to pull him back down to reality.

Jester looked up to him, coming down from the conversation with fluttering wings and unstable knees. She enjoyed acting, pretending that she was someone else; it gave her a chance to try out new pairs of shoes. Over Caleb’s shoulder, Charlette and Frederick watched the pair in the middle of the room. Jester curled her finger’s around Caleb’s hand, moving their minimal contact into a gentle embrace. “Caleb,” she whispered. “They are watching.” Before he could respond, she lifted her heels. Balancing on her toes, she placed her lips over his in a chaste kiss.

Caleb hummed in response. In the short amount of time her lips were on his, he had closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he found her cheeks shades darker than normal. The kiss was quick, overly playful, and rushed beyond belief. Caleb had no idea what it meant, and in truth, neither did Jester, but when she nervously moved away, he ran his thumb across the top of her hand, and she paused, not yet ready to break their contact. “Are they still watching?” he asked with a rare tint of mirth in his eyes.

He watched as her eyes bounced between him and the couple, and back to him. “Y-yes,” she struggled, giving herself away with a girlish smile. Caleb wrapped his hand around hers and pulled her to him. He kissed her, let his skin linger against hers, and slowly moved away.

It was not often Jester was reserved, but it only took her five heartbeats to play along. She hooked her arm with his and smiled. She liked these shoes. They fit nicely.

Without comment from either party, the two returned to the Mighty Nein’s table. While they were gone, Beau had ordered another round of drinks, or two, it was difficult for Caleb to tell. Placing his hand on the small of Jester’s back, he helped her into the booth. Nott scooted over. “I suppose you got it?” Caleb asked while pulling a full cup towards him.

“Yeah, let me see it,” Jester said.

Nott’s large yellow eyes crinkled. She fished around her pocket and retrieved their prize. The three huddled around the goblin’s outstretched hands. Cradled between her palms, lied a completely average looking button. Jester held her mouth open, and Nott looked to her expectantly. “It’s…” Jester struggled with the truth.

“I can see why you wanted it,” Caleb supplied, hiding his sarcasm behind the rim of his cup. “You’ll put it in your special pouch, correct?”

“Of course,” Nott snapped, upset that he would ask such a question.

“Well, you know,” Jester said, attempting to act casual. Her heart was in both her stomach and her throat. “If you need any more help with stealing them, Caleb and I have gotten really good at distracting people.” She let the wave of her accent take the words into a song-like rhythm.

Nott tossed the button back into her pocket. “Hmm, you were very helpful tonight,” she mumbled as she considered the idea.

Caleb brushed his hair out of his eyes. “You know how efficient we were on the road when it was just us? With Jester to help, think of how many trinkets and baubles you can have.”

“A trio of thieves.” Nott tested the words as if she truly needed convincing.

“Well, it would be more like, a thief and her two accomplices,” Caleb corrected. At his side, Jester bounced her leg. The movement caused the entire bench to shake.

“Yes, yes, two accomplices, one thief.” The way she said it gave Caleb pause. She suddenly nodded. “It sounds like a good partnership, but don’t expect a cut.”

“I never have, Nott,” Caleb said.

“And I have all the buttons and doo-dads, I need,” Jester said as Nott turned to her.

“Then it’s a deal!” Nott said, ears twitching and eyes wide. “Two accomplices, one thief, is a go.”

Over the goblin’s head, Caleb and Jester caught each other's eyes. They smiled something shy and something new, but despite the bridge they had crossed that night, neither of them were afraid.

From then on out, both of them kept a keen eye out for any sparkling items or plain, golden buttons.


End file.
